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Vladimir Putin has directly answered the big question. Appearing at a panel hosted by CNBC, Putin referenced the infamous George H.W. Bush line when he asked his audience to read his lips when promising no new taxes.

Putin’s assurance that Russia did not meddle in the US election will almost certainly not change the tune of those who think otherwise.

The entire Russiagate fiasco in the United States is less about objective analysis on US-Russian relations, than it is an internal Washington power-play using a tired old accusation from the 1950s. It’s got all the incredulity of a McCarthyite witch hunt combined with not so subtle racism about the nature of Russian people, rather than the old ideological ‘battles’ of the Cold War.

“We said on numerous occasions and I reiterate that we are confident … And know for sure that opinion polls in the Unites States show that very many people are … friendly towards the Russian Federation and I’d like to tell these people that we perceive and regard the United States as a great power with which we want to establish good partnership relations.

All those things are fictional, illusory and provocations, lies. All these are used for domestic American political agendas. The anti-Russian card is played by different political forces inside the United States to trade on that and consolidate their positions inside”.

The mainstream media are indeed operating under the guise of illusions rather than reality. One needn’t have a positive or even a neutral opinion of Russia to realise this.

It is a political false flag designed to obfuscate responsibility from the real issues, namely that Donald Trump’s opponents dislike the US President’s style but they cannot offer any substantive programme to offer as a viable alternative for increasingly alienated voters.

Since the end of the Cold War, many American voters have been increasingly alienated from the powers that be. But whereas in previous elections, this expressed itself in the form of voter apathy, Donald Trump’s political movement has galvanised these voters to express their alienation in the form of activism, speaking out on social media and ultimately voting for the self-styled anti-establishment candidate, Donald Trump.

It’s rather sad that when the electorate stayed at home, few politicians cared about their disillusionment. Now that they have voted, Washington seems to be in the grips of a mad scramble to assign blame for a failure of a political system that long predated the arrival of Donald Trump the politician.

Far from not being able to read Vladimir Putin’s lips, they cannot even hear the voices of their own citizens. Their citizens are angry with their own leaders. Their views on Russia range from indifference to informed respect.